Martin Amis - Lionel Asbo

‘Promise.’

‘And remember. A promise is a promise.’

The phone sounded, and as he went to pick it up he saw Goldie settling on the balcony, her tail like an undulating question mark; she sat, and listened, with independently twitching ears — one ear listening right, one ear listening left.

‘Des? … I thought I’d pop in one of these nights.’

Des said, ‘Course, Uncle Li. Which?’

‘How would I know? All this going on. Load of bollocks,’ he said (and in the background you could hear many faint but festive voices). ‘I’m standing here in a fucking black-and-yellow romper suit. For why? Because Lynndie England’s showing off her waist in one of her wasp outfits. Colour-coordinated, see. We’re throwing a party for all her lookalikes. And you know what? Half of them’s on retainer! And her stalkers! What’s happening, Des? Me face — me face, Des, it’s all distorted! From the smiling . I can’t get it back to what it was before! … What’s happening? Where’s Lionel Asbo? Gone. I’m gone, boy, I’m gone. Jesus, load of bollocks all this is.’

When Lionel rang off Des went on sitting there with the phone in his hand. For a moment his breast throbbed with warmth; then from another direction came a kind of arrhythmia of anxiety; and then the warmth returned.

‘Ah, see him? Fairly glowing, he is. Well. Love is blind,’ said Dawn.

He looked up. There was a temptation to say something about (that genius) Horace Sheringham, but he didn’t need to because they both understood.

And now the fairy-tale romance between ‘Threnody’ and Lionel began to lose its way.

In late June ‘Threnody’ bolted from her seat in the VIP enclosure at the Elle Style Awards and went back to the South Central Hotel — early, alone, and in tears. Photos: ‘Threnody’ with smeared mascara fleeing the Churchill Ballroom in her silk tanktop and diamanté tutu; Lionel sullenly remaining at the round table with his feet up on the empty chair …

In early July Lionel stormed out of the Full Throttle Motor Show, in Manchester. Photos: against a background of glass and burnished metal, the opposed figures, at various angles: Lionel like a mammoth in his mink coat, ‘Threnody’ like an elf in her Union Jack bikini, Lionel with an imperious forefinger upraised, ‘Threnody’ with hands and arms combatively akimbo …

Then came the acrimonious dinner — in some paparazzi-girt trattoria in King’s Road. The dailies concentrated on the postprandial slanging match, out on the pavement (with ‘Threnody’ obviously the worse for wear ). But what stayed with Des was a follow-up paragraph in the Evening Standard ’s Londoner’s Diary: a well-placed fellow diner disclosed that Lionel and ‘Threnody’ spent the entire meal saying ‘yeah yeah yeah’ to each other. The entire meal. ‘Yeah yeah yeah .’

At this point the couple repaired to ‘Wormwood Scrubs’ — they’ve work to do on their relationship , admitted Sebastian Drinker. They know this fully well . And ‘Threnody’, in confirmation, released these simple lines:

Talking over issues

Seeing eye to eye

Learning how to compromise

As the years go by

Trifling disagreements

We hereby cast aside

For you will be mine husband

And I will be thy bride …

‘She said Lionel cracked up when he read her poem.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘No, Dawn. Listen. Poor Lionel couldn’t finish it. He was crying that hard .’

‘… It gives you a funny feeling, all this, doesn’t it.’

‘Yeah, it does. What was all that squabbling in aid of? Her getting pissed and them yelling in the street. To make them look human?’

‘To make them look English, you mean. No, I reckon it’s just indiscipline.’

‘The strain.’

‘The strain.’

They were out on Steep Slope: Sunday morning — and early Sunday morning (7 a.m.), before Diston stirred and rose. Dusty chestnuts, cloth-capped flowers, bent beer cans: the natural surroundings. Only the smell of liquid waste maintained the power to astonish — the way it maddened the gums.

‘Wait,’ he said.

Their pace slowed as they approached the little memorial to Dashiel Young. Dashiel, the Jamaican teenager beaten to death by six grown men on Steep Slope — six years ago. A lozenge of grey stone, indented, flush with the ground, and the etched words: Always Remembered. Dashiel Young, 1991–2006 . Des bowed his head. He always remembered. Grief is the price we pay for … They moved on.

‘Lionel and “Threnody”. There’s something infinite in it,’ said Dawn, peacefully and mysteriously (as always, now).

‘Infinitely what?’

‘Poor. Imagine pretending to be in love.’

‘Mm. Imagine.’

IT WAS ON the last Saturday of Dawn’s fifth month that Lionel paid his first visit.

‘He said he might look in sometime. That’s all. You know Uncle Li. Predictably unpredictable. Always was.’

‘… That’s a useless bloody phrase, that is. Predictably unpredictable. I mean, how far’s it get you? Where’s the predictable bit come in? Lionel’s not predictably unpredictable. He’s unpredictably unpredictable.’

‘Yeah. He’s just unpredictable.’

Predictable and its opposite were becoming similarly meaningless in the half-dark of the kitchen. One of those pleasant, deep-voiced, lethargic dusks when no one turns the lights on. Why aren’t the lights on? Who hasn’t turned the lights on? You haven’t. I haven’t … They were wondering aloud about what to have for dinner, and such talk, at Avalon Tower (after the year of cereal, the year of baked beans on toast, the year of pasta and pesto), was a sign of high living. He said,

‘I just mean he may surprise us. By not being surprising.’

‘Oh pack it in, Des. I’m going mad.’

‘… How about a Cornish pasty?’ This suggestion was teasingly made. ‘Or a Cheltenham lamb pasanda.’

‘Good idea. Or Cumberland sausages and mash.’

‘Or a Melton Mowbray pork pie.’

Although Des still sometimes gorged himself on (for example) anchovies and chocolate fudge, it was Dawn’s palate that was in the ascendant at Avalon Tower. And Des bowed to the genetic suzerainty of Horace Sheringham. Always rather limited in her tastes, Dawn now wanted everything she ate to be tamely and blandly English .

‘I know what you’d really like for your dinner. Scones. With Cow and Gate Farmer’s Wife Double Devon Cream.’

Then they heard the rattle, the double-thunk, the creak, and the percussive wheeze of the slammed front door.

Des stood up and reached to his left, and the neon strips came on with a flustered whinny. ‘In here, Uncle Li!’

‘… Yeah, well where else?’ said Lionel, whose bouldery shape now filled the doorway. Intent, unsmiling, the mink coat worn capelike over the deep-blue suit with its churchy glisten. In one tensed fist he was holding a soft leather valise, and in the other a wicker hamper, which he now swung up on to the table. ‘Got me beer?’

‘On its way, Uncle Li. Just in the tin?’

The valise was dropped, the coat shrugged off. Lionel took a chair and swivelled it, facing out over the colourless evening. He settled himself with his Cobra and his Marlboro Hundred. His long back was sloped and still, but the tips of his shoulders now and then lightly shuddered. Many minutes passed.

‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said without turning. ‘Ah, that’s better. Here, Dawn. What’s the uh, what’s the basis of domestic bliss? I’ll tell yuh. Respect ,’ he said pitilessly. Up came a squat forefinger. ‘And empathy. Empathy. “Threnody” reckons …’